How does Europeana relate to generic search engines and to digitisation initiatives such as Google book-search?

Europeana is a cultural project and not a commercial undertaking. It creates a multimedia space on the web for everyone interested in European culture.
Europeana will bring together, through one single access point, digitised material (books, documents from archives, audiovisual material, paintings) from different types of cultural institutions (archives, museums, audiovisual archives and libraries). Therefore Europeana will be far more specific than the generic search engines: it will give fewer hits, but more targeted results.
Europeana is notable for strong features like the quality and authenticity of the content, guaranteed by the cultural organizations behind the service, and its openness in terms of cultural institutions that can participate and re-use the material.
Europeana has a broader remit than commercial search engines such as "Google books". Europeana will give access to different types of content from different types of cultural institutions, thus making it possible to bring together the works of a painter with relevant archival documents, as well as the books written about his life.

Can private individuals or commercial companies make content available for Europeana? Can they upload it themselves?

Not at this stage, though there will be a flickr account related to Europeana where people can upload their photographs of, for example, their visits to historic sites and monuments. For the fully operational version of Europeana in 2010 this aspect of the site will be developed: Private collectors or holders of interesting documentary or photographs, for example, will be able to upload them into the Communities area of the site.

How is Europeana organised?

On 8 November 2007, the European Digital Library Foundation was set up formalising the agreement between European archives, museums, audiovisual archives and libraries to work together in the delivery of Europeana. The Foundation is open to content holders (individual museums, archives and libraries) and national and European associations of content holders.
The Europeana office, where the Europeana service is being developed and run, is hosted by the Dutch National Library in The Hague.

How can I access Europeana, search cultural content, and learn more about it?

You can visit Europeana at www.europeana.eu/

Europeana info clip

EN: http://ec.europa.eu/avservices/video/video.cfm?sitelang=en&type=1

FR: http://ec.europa.eu/avservices/video/video.cfm?sitelang=fr&type=1

Source: http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=MEMO/08/724&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en